


Let's Not Jinx This Into a Tragedy

by slotumn



Series: Wherever the Wind May Take Us [15]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Bittersweet, Character Study, F/M, Ficlet, Introspection, Pining, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23206882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slotumn/pseuds/slotumn
Summary: They run into each other at night in the library while she's staying at Garreg Mach as a guest, because where else would this happen?Or more specifically, she runs into him.A.K.A. Lysithea finds Claude sleeping in the library and has some complicated thoughts.
Relationships: Lysithea von Ordelia/Claude von Riegan
Series: Wherever the Wind May Take Us [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593274
Kudos: 19
Collections: Slotumn Portfolio





	Let's Not Jinx This Into a Tragedy

They run into each other at night in the library while she's staying at Garreg Mach as a guest, because where else would this happen?

Or more specifically, she runs into him.

He's fallen asleep at his desk, like she used to all those years ago, with books about human biology (specifically, blood) and Crests splayed out alongside him. 

His hair is messy with a headband tied around it, and the beard she's gotten used to seeing is gone-- he looks eerily like his seventeen year-old self, even though seventeen-year old Claude would never have fallen asleep where others could easily sneak up on him. (She learned why during their pillow talks at Fódlan's Locket and didn't know what to say in response.)

The surprisingly neutral expression on his face makes her want to hug him, kiss him, yell at him that he shouldn't have abandoned all his duties for something so selfish and personal, beg him to save her like some passive damsel in distress waiting for her prince, thank him for choosing her over the future he dreamed of.

She doesn't do any of those things, because he probably needs that sleep, and because she's afraid of finding out the details-- of how much effort will be wasted, how much tears will be shed when this doesn't work. Even if she's almost tempted to hope it will, because it's Claude, and he always finds a way. 

But tragedies always show one last flash of hope before it's brutally crushed. 

She doesn't want to be remembered as a tragic heroine. She doesn't want to be all those cliché lines reserved for people who die too early. She doesn't want to be an idealized, nostalgia-filtered abstraction spoken about in past tense.

She wants to be Lysithea, not two Crests and a shortened lifespan, even though two decades of the former being constricted by the latter is threatening to fuse both into a mass of useless regret and pathetic resignation.

And when he shifts around and mutters something like "Just a little bit more," opens his eyes for the briefest moments and spots her before closing it again and whispering, "Lys," it's impossible to tell which part is the one suddenly screaming, fuck it, fuck it all, I don't care, I want this. 

I've had my share of suffering, I've carried my load of responsibilities, and now it's time for me to be happy, it yells. I want to bake sweets, travel to other lands and see what magic they use, figure out how to grow a garden full of lilies and tulips without all the manual labor, look at stars, sing songs from old poems, get married, have a family, grow old, and I want to do it with him. 

Come on, admit it, tell him! Everyone else is finding their happily ever afters, why can't you?!

With that, she quietly turns her steps back to the guest room before the late night honesty can do anything stupid. 

\---

The sky is calm and pale and cloudy the next morning, Claude is nowhere to be found, and she almost thinks that the previous night was a dream.

Come to think of it, it's stranger that she ran into him without being aware of the fact that he was at the monastery-- a massive white wyvern and a former king aren't exactly easy things to sneak around undetected. 

(Unless he came at night and immediately left in the morning, which wasn't entirely improbable.)

Then she finds baklavas wrapped in purple and yellow paper where the two of them used to study every night. 

Just can't help it, can you, she thinks, and despite herself, she smiles as she carefully takes it back to her room. 

**Author's Note:**

> [LysiClaude week twitter](https://twitter.com/LysiClaudeWeek?s=20)
> 
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/slotumn?s=09)
> 
> The "these two have really similar internal thought processes and exact opposite ways of showing it" thing strikes again!


End file.
